The present invention relates generally to the bonding of small electronic components, and more particularly, is directed to a mass handling system for the bonding of small electronic components.
In the bonding of electronic packages or boards containing many components, it is known to mount a plurality of identical electronic packages on a boat. The boat is then transported by an indexing mechanism to a bonding apparatus which automatically bonds electrical connections between various components of the electronic packages.
However, in many instances, it is desirable to bond electrical connections between various elements of a very small component, such as a TO header type lightwave device. A TO header type lightwave device includes a very small metal package or TO style header that holds a light emitting diode (LED), a PIN photodiode, a photoreceiver or the like. Specifically, the TO style header may include a circular head on which the electronic components, such as an integrated circuit (IC), a PIN photodiode and a capacitor are mounted, and three legs extending axially down from the underside of the circular head. In such case, two of the legs are input and output legs, respectively, and extend through to the upper surface of the circular head for connection to the electronic components, and the third leg is a ground leg connected to the underside of the circular head.
With such a TO header type lightwave device, it is necessary to bond electrical connections between the input leg, the output leg, the integrated circuit (IC), the PIN photodiode and the capacitor. However, because of the small size of the TO header type lightwave device, it has not been possible to perform this bonding operation in a mass production operation. Accordingly, this has been performed manually at a slow rate, and with a greater amount of errors that would normally occur with a mass production system.